So, despite being in a sort of hiatus in terms of writing, mostly because I have been working with my writing group to develop some ideas more thoroughly, I have managed to submit to an anthology… and it came out recently. The details are below. I submitted a story about Rachel Drake getting very irritated at not being told the whole plan in a game of international diplomacy…

In this collection we have brought you tales from nine incredibly talented authors. All with one objective, to bring you alphas that are out of this world. Whether you’re looking for an angel in despair, creature in the dark, or a controversial hybrid. We’ve got something for everyone. Take a dive into the unknown, you won’t be disappointed.

Today’s guest post is by Dr. Jo Bath, co-author of The Newcastle Book of Days, which is a collection of ‘On this Day’ style anecdotes and historical snippets centred around the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne. Being as how it is a city close to my heart, being close to where I was born, my interest is especially piqued by this book. I even remember some of the events described, including the building of the Metro described below. Here she talks about some of the stories she came across when writing the book, including one that is very relevant in Wimbledon season…

Muriel Robb

One of the best things about writing a Book of Days has been the freedom to explore more or less any aspect of local history that caught my eye. Of course, some things were always going to be included in one form or another. You can’t cover Newcastle’s history without referring to, for instance, the Great Fire which devastated the Quayside on October 6th 1854, the development of Grainger Town or the birth of the Metro (the largest urban transport project of twentieth-century Britain). But what really excited me were the nooks and crannies of the city’s history, the almost-forgotten figures and stories which have all, in their way, made the place what it is today.

I’m sitting in my office listening to the tennis, and that reminds me that Newcastle has a Wimbledon champion all of its own in 23-year-old Jesmond-based Muriel Robb. Admittedly her victory was on July 2nd 1902, so the contest was very different from the modern game. Wimbledon merely hosted the English National Championships (though participants did come from further afield – Robb had already won the Irish, Scottish and Welsh Championships). At the time, the women’s game was quite sedate, with underarm serves delivered by refined ladies in floor-length dresses and straw hats. But Robb was a blast of fresh air. Despite the handicap of corsetry, she was a relatively speedy mover and probably the first woman to serve overarm. Contemporary Arthur Myers said that “her command of the ball was so striking, her forehand drives so deadly, and her overhead service so effective, while her self-possession was so apparent,” that her opponents were often placed at a disadvantage.
Remarkably, due to a strange decision Robb’s Wimbledon final, against defending champion Charlotte Sterry, was the longest women’s Wimbledon final in history. The match was drawn at a set each when rain stopped play. Rather than playing a deciding set the next day, the committee decided to wipe the scoreboard and start from scratch! This time, Robb won comfortably – after playing a total of 53 games. Despite her powerful play, her health was never that robust, and she retired later the same year. She died less than five years later, of unknown causes – the youngest Wimbledon champion ever to die.

Armstrong Munitionettes

Speaking of female sports players, Newcastle’s ladies (as you might expect) were also pioneers on the football field. The British Ladies’ Football Club played at St James’ Park on April 20th, 1895, only a month after they formed, and a crowd of 8,000 gathered to watch the “spectacle”. The reporter for the Sporting Man was obviously confused by the whole thing, and spent all his time describing the women’s attire. He concluded that “the young women presented a pretty appearance on the field, and this was in great measure due to the nice assortment of colours, as well as the dainty way the women set them off”! The quality of football played on this occasion is unclear, but certainly twenty years later a new generation of teenage girls embraced the sport with enthusiasm. The Munitionettes League was formed in 1917, made up of teams from the women workers of the factories of the north-east, and was the first ever league for women’s football. Made obsolete by the end of the war, the League lasted less than three years, but St James’ Park, host to the cup final, saw some remarkable young women in action. Mary Brown, playing for Palmer’s of Jarrow, not only played in the 1919 final (March 22nd) but at 14 was the youngest-ever footballer, of either gender, to play for England!

As Christmas ends and the New Year looms, everyone inevitably begins to think about things like resolutions and reviews of past deeds. My intention in this post is to look at this blog and consider what has been successful in the past year.

This table shows the most popular posts for the year. I have excluded the most popular post (at over 2,800 views) because that was ‘homepage/archive’ which basically means that someone viewed the first page. It is interesting that the most popular post this year was one I did as a link to News From the Spirit World for an article I wrote on Vampires. I am guessing that this is due to the overall popularity of Vampires in general. Many of the Absolute Write blog chain posts are also trending in this list which implies that the link from the other blogs in the chain is achieving something. Finally, the Avengers Crossover post and the various Photoshoot posts are perennial favourites that seem to pop up every now and again even months after being posted. Oh, and my ego feels quite pleased that people feel it necessary to view my about page…

Ten Most popular keywords

vampires

280

zombie

98

vampirler

29

avengers meme

17

writer

13

weird worlds

12

zombie lady

12

behaviour management

9

the chosen book review

9

vampire

9

There have been a number of weird and wonderful keywords used over the time this blog has been active. This table shows the most popular ones used. I am sure no one is at all surprised that Vampires come up top, especially given the result of ‘most popular post’. There are also a few variants on that – vampires and vampirler showing up a few times. Zombie is also a search term which again shows up frequently with a couple of variants – zombie lady being the one shown here. Finally, it is probably no surprise given the popularity of that franchise that the Avengers shows up as the most popular after Vampires and Zombies in this table. The numbers here are obviously less than those for the most popular post because search terms are by their nature more variable.

This table does not show some of the weirdest search terms used to find this blog because most of those were one offs… ‘Cute Zombie Girl’ and ‘Hot Sexy Zombie’ both came up 3 times (with other variants in there as well), ‘Ninfa Goddess’ another 3 times (though I am not convinced it was not Ninfa herself doing this search out of ego…) and ‘discipline suit’ came up twice. No idea what a ‘discipline suit’ is but I am assuming that search led them to my tirade about behaviour management… There was also a weird one ‘benedict cumberbatch as lascelles’ which I assume must have been someone searching for information about the upcoming Strange and Norrell adaptation in which I think Mr Cumberbatch would indeed make a great Lascelles though I have no idea if he has been cast or not (or if anyone has been cast in this particular adaptation…).If anyone hears about any casting news for Strange and Norrell, please feel free to let me know.

Top Ten Countries Viewing the Blog

United Kingdom

1,971

United States

1,968

Canada

308

Australia

228

India

91

Philippines

73

Germany

68

Puerto Rico

52

France

51

Indonesia

49

Naturally, UK and US dominate this chart in the top two positions here with my fans in both countries vying for top spot and ending with a very close call (only three views in it in the end). This obviously comes from me being British and my books being largely published in the US. I also have a good mix of people from both countries on my facebook and twitter accounts (both of which get links to here posted) and a lot of US people come to me through the Absolute Write forums. Australia and Canada are on here for similar reasons – Australia due to the many fans of Rebekah Harrington and Canada due to Skyla Dawn Cameron and Judy Bagshaw’s occasional posts on this blog. It is also nice to see other countries on here to give the place a proper international feel with places such as the Philippines and Indonesia showing up there.

So, that is a brief overview of the state of this blog as the year comes to a close. I’ve found some interesting trends here and hope to find many more in 2013 when I repeat this process again. Of course, this year has been good for a few other things. In this year I managed to get involved in the creation of an entire world background for a fantasy wargame called Realm (today is your last chance to enter the competition to win some miniatures…) and also to finally release Transitions onto an unsuspecting public after many many years in ‘publication hell’. I’ve also managed to organise two successful photoshoots by bringing different people with different exceptional talents together then sitting back and watching them work magic.

In 2013 I have other plans afoot and hope to be able to announce other fun things very soon…

The university is where the contemporary action of the story happens. It also happens

The blue plaque at Sarehole Mill

to be one of the (several) universities I attended and worked at in my time as a scientist. I needed a university for my characters to be attending and it seemed a convenient one to use because I knew it so well. There were other advantages too.

One was the association with J.R.R Tolkien. As pointed out in the story, Tolkien did live for some time in the West Midlands (Kings Heath, now a suburb of Birmingham), spent a lot of time visiting places like Clent and Lickey Hills (both places we used to walk our dog) and attended school at King Edward’s school. Said school is right next to the university and does indeed have a good view of the iconic tower which was potentially the inspiration for the tower of Orthanc in Isengard (Sarehole mill being another inspiration, not to mention the dark smoke of the nearby black country). This provided a wonderful opportunity for two of the characters to be pedantic geeks.

The clock tower of the University of Birmingham

The tower itself was also a great location to use for the above scene because it looks so awesome – a huge, red brick clock tower in the middle of a courtyard made from similar red brick university buildings. Ever since I arrived in Birmingham this tower, which is visible from quite a distance away, always struck me as an ideal place for an epic battle between two powerful beings.

Of course… I use it in Transitions for a fight between two students, one drunk the other possessed. It’s hardly epic, more comedic as the drunken student is hardly competent in combat and the possessed one does not care and it ends with a piece of pedantry (like all the best arguments). However, one day I will use the tower again and this time it will be even more epic…

In the university I namecheck a number of lecturers. None of these are based on lecturers I know, though some have traits which some lecturers I have had may have shared. The names of the lecturers are, however, those of friends of mine. Professor Abigail Bath is named after two friends, one a costume maker (who also took my profile photo on this site) and the other a Doctor of History (who is also acknowledged in The Curse due to her expertise in Witchcraft). Professor Hayes is also named from a friend of mine. Not, as you may think, Ninfa Hayes (who is a friend but one I hadn’t met when I was writing Transitions) but the man she married. Finally, Dr. Gallop is named after my father in law. I do feel I have to apologise to at least two of the people namechecked here as both of the lecturers they name are not shown as the best of the breed.

The final scenes of the book centre on Selly Oak which is a place with a lot of student accomodation just outside the university. Specifically, a pub called the Bristol Pear

The Bristol Pear Pub, Selly Oak

which was for a while the home of the University Goth Society’s infamous ‘Friday Night Goth Shite’ nights (or FNGS for short). I tried to portray one of these nights as accurately as possible, including the description of one of the DJs. Unfortunately, FNGS (which was later joined by SNGS, no prizes for guessing what that means) is no longer based at the Pear but when I left Birmingham it was still going strong at a cocktail bar closer to the city centre. It may still be going somewhere. I like to think that someone in Birmingham can still wander into a small pub or cocktail bar somewhere and still find a goth night run by a student society.

So, there is a short tour of some of the Birmingham locations used in Transitions. Next up will be Aqua Sulis.

Note, unlike the previous article, none of the photographs here were taken by me. All credit for them belongs with the original artists who took them.

A week ago I was at one of the somewhat irregular meetings of our relatively newlyformed writers’ group (which has yet to gain an official name but is sort of soldiering on under the name of ‘the Tea Society’). Among the many discussions and random witterings, including some interesting ideas regarding World Book Night which I will share with you later, we got onto a discussion about location photographs. Later that week, during the launch of Oblivion Storm, R.A Smith opened a thread which was a ‘virtual tour of London’ using Google Earth, Streetview and Panaramio to showcase locations from the book.

The reconstructed gatehouse of Arbeia Roman fort in South Shields

So this got me to thinking. When writing Transitions I used a few locations which were familiar to me and as part of the research for the book I took a number of photos to get a better feel for the locations. I was also, at the time, thinking about the cover of the book and what a cover artist may want with regards to inspiration if not actual images they could use to mock up a decent composition.

One of the many caves aong Marsden beach

I had largely considered that to be that. The photos I had taken were between me and my cover artist and have since been left on my Flickr account not doing much. However, during the aforementioned discussion of my writers’s group, Ninfa Hayes mentioned that readers often like to see such things. Thinking about it, I agreed with her so I decided to share some of these location shots with you. There are three main locations discussed in Transitions – Arbeia Roman Fort and the surrounding area, the Roman City of Aqua Sulis ( which became modern day Bath) and the University of Birmingham and surrounding area.

So, this first post is all about Arbeia. This was a fort built by the Romans in 120 AD to

A shot of Marden beach showing the lift that led down into the pub (which was closed at the time).

act as a resupply depot for Hadrian’s wall. Since the fort was in my hometown it seemed an obvious place to base Gaius Lucius, my Roman character. Of course, there were a number of slight historical issues I had to contend with. Gaius Lucius, for example, is not Arabic like many of the soldiers at Arbeia would have been. Though to be fair, I don’t actually mention his origin so he could well be Arabic. However, throughout the writing of the story I did imagine him as being from Gaul. Another issue is the fact that the fort was founded in 120 AD and I had originally considered the story being set much earlier, perhaps 10 – 30 year after the death of Jesus. Instead, the timing of the fort meant I had to shift my timings to post 120 AD and opted for 123 AD as being not too long after this point. I also flanged over the fact that it is likely the fort in this period was not going to be as well established as is implied in the story. I hope you consider these to be minor issues and also points which you were likely not to have noticed until I pointed them out to you just now… 🙂

A close up of one of the deeper caves

Of course, Gaius is never seen at the fort. Instead, he is first seen travelling along a beach to find a cave in which a mad old man lives. That beach, in case anyone is interested, was what is now known as Marsden beach. I am not aware of there ever having been mad old wisemen living in caves on Marsden beach but I accept there is a chance there could have been. There have always been rumours of smugglers there in the past , using the caves to hide goods and there is a pub, the Marsden Grotto, which popular rumour has was a place where these smugglers would hang out. I am currently drawing on this in another story which I am in the middle of writing – a sequel to Gods of the Sea. The pub is also said to be haunted (one of the ghosts being that of a notorious smuggler, as it happens) and has been the subject of one of those over the top ‘Britains most haunted’ style shows. With all of these features, it struck me as a wonderful inspiration for a location where a Roman could meet a mad old Briton for a bit of supernatural advice.

So, there you have it. How Arbeia Roman Fort and Marsden beach inspired the first part of Gaius Lucius’s story in Transitions. In a later entry I will talk about the city of Bath and the University of Birmingham and how they are linked to the story.

So… today a good friend of mine, Mr R.A Smith (I knew him when he had a name rather than just initials) has a book release for a rather excellent novel called Oblivion Storm. I’m telling you all this so you can pop over to the facebook group and let them tell you all about it there. I believe there is a competition in the offing and quotes and all sorts of fun things. There may even be pie.

Well, ok, there won’t be pie but that’s ok because you won’t care about that because there is a fascinating read ahead of you if you do decide to pick up this book.

In other news, there is something I will be announcing sometime over the next few days which may be of interest to you all. Well, it is of interest to me anyway so regardless of what you think of it, I shall announce it anyway. Keep your eyes peeled on this space for more details. I am merely waiting for a report from some busy little elves (well, one busy little elf) that certain things are in place…

I was recently informed of a positive review of Transitions. Actually, I was informed of this review a few weeks ago, but am only just getting round to posting about it now. With an event to help organise (or at least provide moral support for), real world work to plan and my insane idea to do Nano this year (that’s a whole different post…) I was actually finding it hard to do much serious blogging last month. There was also the fact that the link I was sent to the review does not actually seem to go to a page that includes my review. I was not sure if this meant my review was yet to be published, was lost deep in an archive or was only visible during the third quarter of the full moon when the month has an F in it and is more than 28 days… So, I didn’t want to post anything about it until I got some form of confirmation.

But now November is over, the event was this weekend gone and Nano is also a thing of the past. I do still have real world work to do but my time is a little freer than it was. Ok, I still cannot find the actual review (if anyone can help, I’d appreciate it) but what the hell…

So, the lovely people over at Penumbra Press sometimes review books by other publishers and they decided to pick up mine (the full review is allegedly in their reviews section but I cannot find it). The fragment of the full review that was sent to me is fairly promising, however. It included:

“Throughout this story D. A. Lascelles artfully uses his skills with words to magically paint images in the reader’s head. Not only do places come into clear focus, but the seasons and atmosphere of the locations are also imbued with a descriptive clarity and realistic essence.

Written for paranormal romance fans of all ages, Transitions successfully marries modern day and roman Britain by interspersing the memories and history of roman officer Lucius Gaius with the ordinarily mundane lives of two university students…Transitions is a fair read that will keep you occupied, even if only for a day trip away.”

And the score was apparently ‘3 books’. I am assuming and hoping that this is out of 5 and not, for example, 500 🙂

This is, in fact, the first review I have ever had. For anything. By anyone who was not a friend or family member, anyway. So far both Transitions and Pirates and Swashbucklers have avoided reviews in places like Goodreads and Amazon though Pirates seems to have been marked as ‘to read’ by a lot of people. So, as a first go at the review wheel I am happy with this result. There will likely be bad ones out there too, not that I have found any yet, so it is good to start on a positive note. Plus, my ego is telling me that I should get that first paragraph printed on a T-shirt because I really like it. A lot.

Gods of the Deep is the current working title, which is a step up from ‘Un-named sequel’ which was its previous working title. It was chosen to fit in with the previous published story which was Gods of the Sea.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea for Gods of the Sea came from a LRP game I used to play (now long defunct). I decided I wanted to tell the origin story of how two of the characters met so one Christmas I got out my laptop and tapped out a few thousand words and sent it to a publisher who I knew were looking for ‘pirate stories’. It got picked up and published in the Pirates and Swashbucklers anthology. No one was more surprised at this than me.

Then, earlier this year, the publisher contacted me and as a result of that discussion the concept of ‘Gods of the Deep’ was produced – an anthology of short stories set in the same world as Gods of the Sea, including both a reprint of Gods of the Sea and some form of sequel. Again, I was surprised.

What genre does your book fall under? It’s mainly fantasy with some pulp elements. And Pirates, Because you’ve got to have pirates…

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?

Many years before I’d even considered writing Gods of the Sea, one of the organisers of the LRP game told me that they believed Professor Everyn Crowe should be played by Christopher Ecclestone. Not sure I quite agree with that assessment but I am hard pressed to find an appropriate alternative. Someone like David Tennant would be good too but I am not sure if that is not just me showing my Doctor Who geekery. Of course there is also the fact that any casting choice may have to take into account Everyn’s foreign nature as he is supposed to have a ‘Mediterranean’ look but that has never stopped Hollywood in the past before.

Captain Rachel Drake obviously has to be played by a strong, British woman. Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary Crawley) is a possibility but there are a few other actors who would be excellent in that role. I think there may, however, be a general call for ‘anyone other than Keira Knightly’ which I agree with…

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I am still writing it so no idea. Am hoping to get it finished soon, though. It is my Nano project and completion of it is the target I have set myself for this month. However, Nano style writing is different to how I usually do things. The concept of splurging words onto the page in order to acheive a word count target and worrying about the editing later is alien to me. I prefer a slower method with less faff afterwards. However, slower methods do not let you reach deadlines so easily.

Gods of the Sea was written in a number of days, however. And not whole days, either. A few hours each day in between doing other things. Possibly the fastest I have ever written anything intended for publication that actually got published.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

One of my crit partners did say that Gods of the Sea read a little like a Michael Moorcock story and I have been strongly influenced in the past by his work, specifically the Elric novels. So I suppose you could say that the closest comparison to Gods of the Deep would be a Michael Moorcock story in style if not in the features of the story. The fact that Gods of the Sea and Gods of the Deep are shorter fiction (Gods of the Sea is a short, Gods of the Deep a novella) which have a direct continuity with each other also fits the pattern of early Moorcock, where one novel was comprised of several shorter stories that directly followed on from each other.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

The main inspiration for the story came from the LRP game, Adventures in the Arcroc, which I played many many years ago. The Arcroc was the name of a fantasy world with a technology level roughly somewhere between 1600’s and 1800’s. It’s not particularly precise in its historical comparison because there are elements from all over history thrown in there, but the history is also an inspiration as are stories of swashbucklers and pirates and adventures at sea – anything from Sinbad to Hornblower and Pirates of the Carribean.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? How about a teaser?

There are demons… and a scene I love where Everyn runs to Rachel’s rescue, thinking he is the only one who can save her from assasination, only to find when he gets there that she has quite happily rescued herself and is now being rather suave about it in an ‘injury? What injury? Oh this? Just a scratch…’ sort of way.

“But…” he stammered. “The demon…” He waved the horse statue in the air in front of his face. “I’m here to… banish it.”

“Banish it?” She smiled as she checked the length of the blade for nicks and scratches. “No need, everything is under control.”

“But, the only way you could have banished that demon was to have empowered a suitable vessel with the correct incantations and blessings and trapped its incorporeal essence therein…”

“Not the only way, no.” As the dressing on her wound was completed, she stood and tested her weight on the leg, wincing slightly as she did so.

“Well, no, you could have physically ablated its physical form using brute force but generally such creatures are immune to most forms of weapon. Many can only be harmed by a blessed weapon or something composed of an alloy with a significant quantity of silver.”

“Hmmmmm, yes….” She held the sword up, letting the light fall on its shiny surface and reflecting on her face. “Silver alloys. I wonder where someone with my wealth could get hold of something like that?”

And… YOU, Yes, you over there, the writer who is reading this. If you want to do the next big thing challenge, feel free to consider yourself tagged by me, just make sure you link back to me when you do…

As you can see, I am not on the short list. Not an unexpected result as there were a lot of high quality writers entering this. So, not too disappointed about the result and, in actual fact, there is a beneficial side effect from failing to get a place in the contest. I have another use for the story I submitted – a story about an old woman with a magical dagger called The Final Sacrifice.

A few months ago, I was asked to follow up Gods of the Sea*. I agreed to do a novella and a series of shorts to make up a short novel length anthology. I’ve been working on that ever since, whenever I get the time to write. When I was considering what stories I had already written which had yet to be published could be included in this anthology, The Final Sacrifice stood out as one which could definitely fit the brief. I am therefore actually quite pleased that there are now 4000 words I do not have to fill with another story as yet unwritten…

So, my writing plans over the next few months involve plugging away at this new anthology. Currently about half way through…

In the meantime, while you are waiting for me to actually get round to finishing this anthology, you can still enjoy my paranormal romance Transitions… It has Romans in it. And Goths. But not the Barbarian tribe… You can also still get a free copy of The Curse. It has Witches in it. Well, mad prophetic dreams…

A hell of a long time ago, I sent off a short story that had been hanging about in my hard drive for a while to the fantasy writing contest. It was a tale of an elderly woman being mugged for a magical dagger she carried with her. It had previously been rejected by Sword and Sorcereress and Tor.com and I saw no harm is sending it off to be rejected by this contest too. I had more or less forgotten about it as the submission window numbered several months and the reading period many more (the reasons why are outlined in this blog by the editors).

Now a casual tweet by the editors has sent me into a panic. They have decided on a short list. However, instead of dealing with the cuts in a quiet and civilised manner, they are publishing the list of lucky people in small increments… One small selection of the list released each day until the entire list is out there. So now, of course, I am absolutely desperate to know if I have been successful despite not caring until now.

So well done to the editors of this contest for making me feel like this… I am off to sit in a corner gibbering until the entire list is released. 🙂

Good luck to all who entered and commisserations to those of you who, like me, don’t make it to the final cut.